Sound Transit dedicates new Eastgate Access Ramps

Sound Transit joined with its partners – the Washington State Department of Transportation, City of Bellevue and King County Metro Transit – today to dedicate the new Eastgate Access Ramps at 142nd Avenue SE and I-90 in Bellevue.

“This is such an important project for our city and the entire region,” said Sound Transit Vice-Chair and Bellevue City Councilmember Connie Marshall. “We all know the I-90 corridor is one of the fastest growing and most congested in Central Puget Sound. These ramps, along with the thousands of new park-and-ride slots and other improvements along I-90, will go a long way toward improving the speed and reliability of transit between Seattle and the Eastside.”

The Eastgate ramps are part of Sound Transit’s I-90 network of new facilities including park-and ride lots and garages in Mercer Island, Issaquah and on the Sammamish Plateau. See map below.

The new ramps will provide a more direct connection to the Eastgate Park-and-Ride for buses, carpools and vanpools traveling the I-90 corridor. Transit and other High Occupancy Vehicles (HOVs) will save travel time by avoiding the congested intersections nearby in Factoria and Eastgate. Additionally, they will no longer have to cross three lanes of traffic to exit I-90 from the HOV lanes to access the park-and-ride. This benefits everyone driving on I-90; by eliminating that “weave” from the HOV lane, general-purpose traffic moves more freely, especially during the commute hours.

The Eastgate Access Ramps will open to all HOV traffic on Saturday October 21.